Photo by Henry Redcliffe

This season’s hottest look is pure nihilism and Charli XCX is showing everyone how to wear it best on “SS26”. While the pop star refutes the existence of a looming rock album, the latest in a surprise trickle of singles and B-sides very much fashions itself adjacent to alternative designs that are quickly adding up to a full line of bold-faced pop-rocked XCX-isms. This listen in particular — written alongside A.G. Cook and Finn Keane — is an electric reverie that doubles as a platform where she can deconstruct the merits of the personal being political, the political being performative, and the performative being nothing but a cash grab against the haze of our current doom and gloom reality. If the modern shoegaze wave ran through the eclectic electronic of the BRAT universe, it might lead somewhere brighter. Instead, it’s a sound that schisms into its own lane, blushed in black. “Yeah, we’re walkin’ on a runway that goes straight to hell / Nothing’s gonna save us, not music, fashion, or film.” But at least it’s a great distraction from the former, right?… Right??

Directed by: Torso

Charli XCX’s “SS26” single is available now on Atlantic Records.